New Delhi:
Because the battle in West Asia is poised to set off a sequence of harmful escalations risking full-scale struggle between Iran and Israel, Iran’s Ambassador to India Iraj Elahi in the present day sought India’s intevention to assist convey stability to the area.
“India should take this oportunity to persuade Israel to cease its aggression within the reigon and assist convey peace and stability,” the Ambassador mentioned, talking to NDTV.
India, which has pleasant ties with each Iran and Israel, has been urging all events concerned within the West Asia disaster to de-escalate tensions and resolve points by means of diplomacy and dialogue.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had even spoken to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu after Tel Aviv opened a brand new entrance to the battle with its northern neighbour Lebanon, the place it’s concentrating on Hezbollah.
In an unique interview to NDTV, the Iranian Ambassador additionally mentioned that “If Israel stops, we’ll cease,” including that “Iran doesn’t need struggle. We wish to have peace within the area, but when our nationwide safety is hit, then it leaves us with no different possibility than to retaliate, and that’s exactly what we did.”
He went on to clarify that Iran’s ballistic missile assault was “retaliatory transfer” and was carried out in response to the “assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil. He was our state visitor and was assassinated by Israel in our nation. That may be a nationwide safety concern, and in line with our Structure, we now have to take care of such a problem with a retaliatory response.”
The Ambassador additionally clarified that the missile assault was not for the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. “The difficulty is getting blended up right here. Our retaliation to Israel was just for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, not for the Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah can handle itself,” he mentioned.
IRAN’S SUPREME LEADER MAKES RARE SERMON
Earlier within the day, Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mentioned Israel “will not final lengthy” as he backed the Palestinian and Lebanese actions towards Israel in his uncommon Friday sermon. Addressing tens of hundreds of supporters at a mosque in Tehran, Khamenei justified its missile strikes on Israel as a “public service”.
A gun saved by his aspect, the Iran chief declared that Israel wouldn’t prevail towards Hamas or Hezbollah as chants of “we’re with you” from the group echoed within the huge mosque grounds.
This was Ayatollah Khamenei’s first public sermon in 5 years. The final time he did so was in January 2020 after a missile assault on a US military base in Iraq – which was Tehran’s response to the killing of prime Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani.
Talking concerning the uncommon incident, Ambassador Elahi mentioned, “He’s the Supreme chief of Iran. He is not only the political head of the federal government, but additionally the commander-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces – the very best navy chief,” implying that his orders are all the time adopted.
‘DEFINING THE CRISIS – THE PROBLEM OF INTERPRETATION’
Ambassador Elahi mentioned that all the disaster is a “confusion” which is induced because of the drawback of how it’s outlined and the way it’s interpreted. “Israel defines the disaster as proxies of Iran (Hamas and Hezbollah) targetting Israel. However Iran defines the disaster as Israel’s aggression and occupation of Palestine and Lebanon.”
We imagine within the pursuit of reality, mentioned the Ambassador, explaining his stance that “It’s Israel that has occupied Palestinian territories each in West Financial institution and in Gaza. It has additionally occupied territories in Lebanon, in addition to the Golan Heights in Syria. It’s them who’ve invaded and been the aggressors.”
‘RESILIENT IRAN’
There’s a notion within the West that Iran has been weakened by US sanctions – that its economic system is dwindling and its navy not as highly effective because it as soon as was, the Ambassador mentioned, including that “this notion is wrong. Iran has proven that it’s self-reliant and its home economic system is functioning high-quality.”
Talking about how Iran plans to defend its oil reserves or different essential infrastructure from an Israeli retaliatory strike, the Ambassador mentioned, “Within the navy there’s passive and lively defence. The response to Israel by way of a missile assault for violating our sovereignty was an lively defensive position. However on the identical time, Iran additionally has a powerful defence mechanism in place for an incoming assault. We’ll defend our pursuits, installations and property passively.”
He went on to say that it’s due to the sanctions that in the present day Iran has “achieved self-sufficieny in lots of sectors. It has made Iran self-reliant and resilient. Actually, Iran just lately even launched its personal satellite tv for pc. So our economic system is something however weak – and decision-makers in Israel and the US shouldn’t really feel in any other case and miscalculate.”
Giving an instance of Iran’s struggle with Iraq, the Ambassador mentioned that in that point, “68 nations have been towards Iran and supporting Iraq. They even despatched troops to the struggle entrance. US was proving its intelligence inputs, meals was going to Iraq from Gulf nations, arms and ammunitions have been being offered to Iraq by the Soviet Union. France was heloing Iraq too, however we overcame all that and defended ourselves. We now have carried out it then, we’ll do it now,” the envoy mentioned.
He additionally talked about that Iran is in shut session with each Russia and China on the West Asia disaster.
‘ISRAEL’S REACTION SHOWS IT IS PAINED BY IRANIAN STRIKES’
The best way Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted “reveals the extent to which Iran’s missile strike has harmed Israel. How a lot it has pained Israel. Regardless of Israel’s censorship of precise harm induced, their response signifies that Iranian missiles have certainly hit their navy installations. Our retaliation was certainly damaging for them,” the Ambassador mentioned.
He additional mentioned that “Our retaliation reveals that we didn’t strike their residential areas, solely their intelligence and navy installations. That mentioned, we don’t want to escalate this additional. We hope that Israel is not going to resort to an assault that may restart an limitless cycle of responses.”
